Color or Black-and-White? Your Choice!

Hi Brad, I'm a new fan - I've only reading for a month before the change to colour, but I have enjoyed the change, and will leave the colour turned on. Mr Ryzowski is doing a very fine job!

The one draw-back of colour though, it what I liked to think as naked midriffs are actually shown to be covered in the coloured version.

Very disappointing ;)

That's a very cool feature though, giving people the option to switch back to the "classic" version. Although how they can do that, and pretty much slap poor Ed in the face... well, I hope they can sleep at night. That's all I'm saying.

But, love your stuff! Came on board from listening to the WW Podcast, and you seem like a lovely chap, someone who gives nice hugs. No, don't fret, I'm a whole ocean away, so wont be stalking anytime soon.

Make mine Guigar!

Hi Brad --

I like the color strips. Ed is a good color artist, and I really like the way he does shading. But on my monitor, at least, the colors are too darn saturated and too darn dark! (No, I don't have this problem on other sites, including Courting Disaster.)

I took Monday's color .JPG and monochrome .GIF files and superimposed them in Photoshop, two-thirds color and one-third black-and-white, and the colors look about right. The object outlines are more visible, giving the content more impact.

Is it my monitor, or is it just a matter of taste ... or what?

Have to agree about the mid-rifs. ;)

I can't imagine not wanting to see the mind-bogglingly fantastic colour that goes so well with your art style, Brad! But hopefully you please the rest of the people the rest of the time!

Just to make it clear, I'm not complaining! Your strips are the equivalent of free beer, and Ed's color is the equivalent of free egg in my beer. (Do people really do that? I've never had it, just heard the expression.) I just wish there were some way to control the amount of free egg in my free beer ...

Yeah I can see that - not a slap in the face, but more like "it's not you, it's me".

I think it's more a reflection of my own creative insecurities that I would still see that as a rejection of my work, every time someone set that B&W cookie.

I do understand that I'm a Johnny come lately, and Evil Inc has been black and white for ages, and I haven't been along for that ride. I remember how appalled I was when Bone went colour, so I fully understand if long-time readers don't want any colour at all.

This way everyone is happy. Except if it appears too dark :)

So just some (misguided) empathy at Ed, and to say that he'll get no 'Dear John' letter from me :)

I have got to say sir that you really do bend over backwards for your fans! Giving us a choice of color or B/W is really above and beyond the call of cartooning duty. I will admit that the change did throw me for a bit, but I am really enjoying the color now. That being said though, having been here a while it is nice to have the "retro" option ;)

For what it's worth, I was one of those who was a bit wary of the colour at first.

But I think it was merely a question of being reactionary - "change is baaaaad". I tried turning the coulour off, and awesome as the linework is, it's just not as awesome as with colour.

It's really an enormous service to the reader to include a feature like this, though. But I'm glad you didn't do it from the start, since then I might not have allowed myself to grow fond of Ryzowski's colours.

One thing Brad neglected to mention about the "black & white" button (and it should be noted that this has yet to be 100% confirmed, but I personally feel that there's a good chance it's true) is that every time you push it, God kills a kitten.

Don't let that stop you though...I mean I'm sure those kittens had it coming anyway.

That is absolutely ludicrous.

It's a puppy.

Get it straight. :)

The color/BW choice buttons are a nice feature - and in general I think the colorization of the strip has been a success, even though I never had a problem with the black-and-white version.

I do have one small aesthetic complaint regarding the colorization, though - and this may have more to do with me than with any objective reality, so don't take it more seriously than it deserves to be taken: Female characters' lips, which tend to be a bit "overblown" in size in your drawings, become distractingly prominent when colored; the blotch of bright red looks oversized and distorted even though the same outlines in black and white don't bother me.

Since you don't want to start doing separate outlines for the color version, I'm not sure just what to suggest about this. Perhaps somewhat smaller "compromise" lips would still fit within your style but would look better colorized? Or perhaps a less saturated lip color would tone down the effect. (Man, this is complicated! I'm glad I only have to program computers for a living!)

In any case, lips or not, I enjoy Evil Inc. very much - keep up the good work, both of you!

-Don Radlauer
Alfei Menashe, Israel

Kitten…puppy…as long as no ferrets were harmed in the pushing of that button it’s all good.